Pirates Gregory Polaco, the new Moneyball and the Marshmallow test

 

This is the game that the low to mid tier markets have to play to stay competitive with their larger brethren.



from Yahoo Sports:

Source: Pirates offered star prospect Gregory Polanco a long-term deal - Yahoo Sports:

The situation with Polanco is even more naked. At 12-20, with a .687 team OPS and failing platoon in right field, the Pirates unquestionably could use Polanco, who is hitting .397/.449/.621 with four home runs and 26 RBIs. Between his performance over the season's first month and his MVP showing in the Dominican Winter League, he has solidified his place among the top echelon of prospects – the sort whom teams conspire to keep in the minor leagues until after the projected cut-off for so-called Super 2 players. 

The top 22 percent of each service class are designated Super 2 players, meaning they are granted arbitration – and therefore a higher salary – for four seasons instead of three. By keeping a player in the minor leagues until after the Super 2 cut-off, which is usually in early to mid-June, teams estimate a savings of millions of dollars.

'via Blog this'





It has nothing to do with advance stats or stats of any kind, really. It's all about economics and the central lesson of the classic sociological test, the Stanford marshmallow experiment: immediate gratification versus delayed gratification.

This is a trend that the Rays started with Evan Longoria. Remember, they sent him down after a stellar spring, brought him up in April and almost before he performed at the MLB level, they locked him up.



 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Longoria

On April 12, 2008, the Rays placed Willy Aybar on the disabled list and called up Longoria from Triple-A Durham to replace him on the major league roster and on the 40-man roster. Longoria made his major league debut that night going 1 for 3 with an RBI.

On April 18, the Rays signed him to a six-year, $17.5 million contract with options for 2014, 2015, and 2016. The first six years of the contract cover his arbitration years, with three more years added by team options. If the team exercises its nd-setters?one-year option for 2014, and then its two-year option for the 2015 and 2016 seasons, the deal could be worth up to $44 million.^[12][13] There is a general consensus that this contract is among the most team-friendly, in terms of dollars per Wins Above Replacement, in Major League Baseball.^[14]

Between this economic trend and the more recent on the field defensive "shift-a-palooza" that the Rays employ and now other teams have followed suit, can we begin to refer to the Rays as MLB trend-setters?



The Longoria deal certainly raised eyebrows at the time among fans and pundits. It has now raised the ire of the union and agent class in baseball who believe teams are using it as a tactic to low-ball young prospects and take away some of their bargaining power in later, post arbitration years, after they have put up some actual numbers.

As the saying from an old, auto repair TV commercial lamented, "You can pay me now, or pay me later".

That's the decision that the smaller market teams are faced with in order to compete.

And the future stars are faced with the ever so tempting marshmallow test decision.

Yummy, yummy!!!